Texas mother shocked her 4-year-old son tested positive for meth

A Texas mother was shocked to learn her 4-year-old had been exposed to meth. After her son made comments leading her to be suspicious, she had him tested and the tests came back positive.

Four-year-old Hunter was on a week-long visit with his father, and when his mother came to pick him up from the visitation, she noticed a person present who is known to use drugs.

After Amanda Skinner picked up her son, she asked her 4-year-old what his father did when guests were over.

"He says, 'Oh they play video games and smoke stuff, but you've got to hold your finger over it to smoke it,' and I was like, 'What!?'", Skinner told KLTV (courtesy WAFB).

She had Hunter tested for drugs and the results showed his hair follicles came back with strong levels of methamphetamine.

"His hair follicle test came back positive for methamphetamine, and I about died," Skinner said. According to reports, the levels were at 765 pg/mg. Reportedly anything above 500 pg/mg indicates the individual wasn't just "around" meth, but had ingested it.

"The lab tech guy said the amount he had in his system... either they were giving him direct hits off of it, or they were cooking it around him," said Hunter's mom.

Skinner and her husband tested negative, but the boy's father and step-mother tested positive. Experts who did the testing said that the couple's levels of the drug were high.

Currently, Hunter's visitations with his father must be supervised, but that restriction ends in Sept. when the regular visitation schedule resumes, pending a clean drug test. Child Protective Services has closed the case, and Skinner is worried her son will be exposed again by the people she says exposed him before.

"My son is allowed to go back to people who were doing things like this to him, and I have no control over it," she told the TV station.

Hunter's father and step-mother were both arrested on child endangerment charges and will appear in court next month. The couple pleaded not guilty to charges.

Over the past year, meth has increasingly been making news headlines with arrests relating to mobile meth labs, injuries, deaths, environmental hazards and explosions.

Unfortunately, children being affected by meth are also commonly seen in the news, such as this recent meth bust in Sioux Falls, or this tragic incident where a mother shot her children and herself, as Digital Journal reported.

This week "Celebrity Rehab" star Kari Ann Peniche's husband said the couple's 10-month-old baby tested positive for meth. The infant's father tested his son after suspecting his estranged wife had "fallen off the wagon," reported TMZ.

According to CrystalMethAddiction.org, meth began a rebirth in the 1990s and has been rising ever since. "Crystal Meth addiction is a wide spread problem that is sweeping across the United States," the website says.

If the regular media reports on meth are any indicator, the drug continues to plague society in many ways, and sadly, children are often affected.